Blog Roll

Kerry also downplayed Obama's role in Syria 'red line'

Many news outlets are treating as major news President Barack Obama's attempt Wednesday to downplay his setting of a "red line" for use of chemical weapons in Syria.

"I didn’t set a red line; the world set a red line. The world set a red line when governments representing 98 percent of the world’s population said the use of chemical weapons are abhorrent and passed a treaty forbidding their use even when countries are engaged in war," Obama said during a press conference in Sweden as he heads to a G-20 summit in Russia. He went on to make clear that he wasn't denying having ever made the "red line" comment, but emphasizing that he hadn't originated the idea that chemical weapons are beyond the pale.

While Obama had not offered precisely that line of argument in public before, in highly-publicized but apparently little-listened-to testimony Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry said almost exactly the same thing.

"Now, some have tried to suggest that the debate we're having today is about President Obama's red line. I could not more forcefully state that is just plain and simply wrong. This debate is about the world's red line. It's about humanity's red line. And it's a red line that anyone with a conscience ought to draw," Kerry said in his opening statement before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

At least one senator took Kerry's comment to heart: Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who indicated he thought Kerry had framed the issue correctly.

"You say this is the world's red line. I agree," Johnson said, before asking for details about which other nations had lined up to support military action against Syria over its alleged use of chemical weapons.